Method of mixing loose fibrous material.



e. M. SCHULLER.

METHOD OF MIXING LOOSE FIBROUS MATERIAL.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 12, 1913.

1,134,163. Patented Apr.6,1915.

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UNTTED STATES PATENT @FFTQE.

GEORG MAX SCHIILLER, OF KUNNERSDORF-UPON-THE-EIGEN, GERMANY.

METHOD OF MIXING LOOSE FIBROUS MATERIAL.

Application filed November 12, 1913.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, Gnone MAX ScrriiLLER, a subject of the King of Saxony, residing at Kunnersdorf-upon-theEigen, Saxony, in the German Empire, have invented new and useful Improvements in the Method of Mixing Loose Fibrous Material, of which the following is a specification.

Loose raw fibrous material, like cotton, generally comes into the market or the mills in bales of various forms, styles of packing, and size. It is essential that the contents of a bale should not be used alone but should be mixed with the contents of other bales in order that the advantages and disadvantages of the contents of the several bales may be compensated.

All methods of mixing at present known are too difiicult for practice or the number of the bales that can be mixed is too limited or a special form of the bale is requisite for the method. For this reason none of the known methods have had any noteworthy practical application so that there is still a need for a process certain in operation and requiring simple construction and little power (the new machine consumes only one horse-power) accompanied by a large output; the process should also not require supervision.

According to the process constituting the subject matter of the present invention,

complete mixing of the fibers is obtained by laying thin vertical layers in the horizontal plane spirally side by side, each layer being displaced by a fraction of the periphery, for example one quarter (I,.II, III, IV), and each spiral path beginning at the periphery of the horizontal plane and terminating toward its center.

The process may be applied by a machine such as that which will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is an elevation and Fig. 2 a plan.

A horizontal bridge 2 is adapted to turn on a stationary circular rail 1 about the vertical axis M A thereof. Rail 1 has a di ameter of 7 meters and is supported at a height of 4 meters above the floor. It may be constructed to move along rails supported by the walls of the room in order that it may be possible to lay several heaps side by side by means of one machine. On the bridge 2 runs a carriage 3 within which are Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Apr. 6, 1915.

Serial No. 800,452.

journaled two driven rollers over which extends an endless band 4. (lo-axially with the circular rail is fixed funnel 5, the lower diameter of which is about one-fifth smaller than the width of the band 4; this funnel is for the purpose of guiding on to the band 4 the fibrous material which is delivered to it by means of the conveyer band 6. A winding mechanism 7 draws the carriage 3 at uniform acceleration from a to b, at the same time raising the weight 8 when the carriage arrives at point 6 the winding mechanism is thrown out of gear so that the weight 8 immediately returns the carriage to its starting oint a whereupon the winding mechanism i is again thrown into gear for repeating the operation. The acceleration increases in the same proportion as the surface to be covered by the fibrous material diminishes. This results in the production of a uniform depth of the material laid along the entire length of each spiral path.

The operation is as follows :The breaker lays the released fibrous material on the conveyer band 6 which feeds the material through the funnel 5 on to the belt 4 whence it falls over the front roller of the carriage 3. Meanwhile the bridge 2 moves once over I, II, III, IV and the winding mechanism 7 draws the carriage 3 with uniform accelationfrom a to b so that the fibrous material as it falls from the carriage is laid in a spiral path. When the first spiral has been laid (after one revolution of the bridge and one travel of the carriage from a to b) the winding mechanism is thrown out of gear, the carriage is drawn back and begins at II to lay a fresh spiral. This work proceeds automatically until the depth available, H, has been filled. The extent to which the contents of a single bale may be distributed by this method shall now be made clear by way of an example: A bale of cotton, for instance, weighs about 220 kilograms and the cotton occupies a space of about 2 cubic meters after it has been passed through the breaker. Suposing, the machine for carrying out this method is constructed to cover a layer surface of a diameter of 7 meters; the winding mechanism shall be adjusted to describe four spiral paths in each layer (a machine can lay 6, 8 10, or any desired number of spirals if the winding mechanism is correspondingly constructed with change wheels), and the speed of the carriage is proportioned so that one layer is produced With the contents of one bale. The depth of a single layer would then amount to about 0.05 meters, that means that approximately 80 bales would go into the available space of four meters depth. From the heap thus laid the fibrous material is taken in form of cylindrical segments cut out of the heap to the number of twelve, for example. From this it may be seen that while the contents of one bale is spread out into a horizontal layer, it is already thoroughly mixed by being composed of a number of spiral paths. Since each layer is divided into twelve sections, a

twelfth part of each bale constitutes the eightieth part of each cylindrical segment taken from the land heap.

Copies of thin patent may be obtained for I claim: 7

A method of mixing loose fibrous mate rial, consisting in spreading the fibrous material over a relatively. large horizontal .planein thin superposed layers and causing the'fiber to follow with accelerating speed, spiral paths in producing each horizontal layer, each of which spiral paths beginning at the periphery of each horizontal layer, at a point advanced from the peripheral starting point of the preceding spiral, and" terminating toward the center of the horizontal layer, substantially as set forth. 7

GEORG MAX SCHULLER. Witnesses:

JOHANN BE JER, PAUL ARRAS.

five cents each, by addressingithe Commissioner of Iiatente, Washington, D. G. 

